This is the information that ESS Tuning threatened BimmerBoost with legal action over. Some of you may remember that last year we reported the RDsport motor supercharged and tuned by ESS failed. Asbjorn then proceeded to write threats against myself and my family if the information was not removed. BimmerBoost did not remove the information and called their bluff. We have acquired the evidence to prove the motor failed and that it was a result of the supercharger and tuning.

We learned from a source that there was material in the oil pan. What was that material? Well, here is the answer, a broken ringland:

What causes a broken ringland? Detonation is usually the source. Here are the types of failure that detonation usually causes:

1. Mechanical damage (broken ringlands or rod bearing failures)

2. Abrasion (seen on the piston crown)

3. Overheating (piston skirts scuffed due to excess heat)

You already saw that number 1 took place, in the pictures below you can see that numbers 2 and 3 seemed to be a factor as well:

Those look like classic signs of detonation folks. The motor looks like it wore itself out over time which would explain the claims of the owner "driving" shortly before disassembly. Sure, it ran, but not for long according to the pictures and definitely was not healthy.

What appears to have happened is heat built up over time as a result of detonation from possibly a lack of fuel or from the pre-ignition due to too much timing on high compression, as in, poor tuning.

We sent these pictures to an engine builder as well as tuner, people you all know but who asked not to be named, to get their take on what happened:

Originally Posted by Engine Builder

You can see in one cylinder that there are clear signs of detonation in the wall and the skirt, in addition to the obvious sign being that one of the ring lands is broken. All of which are indicative of detonation. As far as the source of this detonation, that's all speculation without additional information. It could obviously be a tuning issue, it could be a systematic fueling issue (lack of fuel), but any clear cut answer would need more data.

And from the tuner:

Originally Posted by Tuner

Initially looks to be piece of piston/ringland shot down into pan. Looks like the motor beat itself to death prior, how long did it last?

Is that the high comp stroker? If so what was static C/R?

Did they report the heads? I see they mowed the guides down to motorcycle head level, unfortunately automotive valves/springs are heavier and that causes valvetrain instability like a motherfucker at high rpm. I would love to see pics of the valve seats, are there any? i bet they were beaten to death by detonation as well.

Originally Posted by Tuner

Yeah detonation/preignition city. Tops of pistons have hot spots burned in them via the exhaust valves, EGTs must have been through the roof if he had cats I bet he melted them, suprised it didn't cut through a piston. Valves and chambers show signs of detonation all over the place.

Well there you have it folks, this motor died rather quickly detonating itself into oblivion. Why? Well, ESS tuning has not been able to have any success tuning supercharged motors outside of the factory internally stock S65. Remember, this in no way reflects on their stock motor kits which are very solid options. The issue rather is their ability to tune for setups beyond the stock motor and this is why they abandoned their Stage 3 low compression supercharged motor. Did this motor failure play a factor in it? Possibly, but either way ESS currently has a 0% success rate with any built motor S65 application.

What many people do not realize is ESS files actually originate overseas. We have heard from more than one tuner that their base files come from the same tuner that does the tuning for G-power. Well, many of you know that G-power kits have failed. This is not odd, we would not be surprised if several kits on the market today share some file similarities that originated from the first G-power kits. This is how it works folks, there is no magic. The problem though lies in that ESS is limited in custom tuning ability as they are forced to work within the narrow confines of what they have been given. This works great for the stock motor setups, but in custom setups, the results can be disastrous as you see here.

What makes this all the more amusing? The owner of this vehicle and ESS has engaged in a cover-up claiming nothing was wrong. Look at what the ESS file loader / US tuner Asbjorn wrote to us:

Originally Posted by Asbjorn@ESS

I am not sure where you have your info from, but Roberts motor was never blown. I hear that you openly post this around the web and I must warn you that legal action will be taken if you do not stop spreading these false rumors immediately. We have had more than enough of your retarded bullshit at this point and you can be sure we will take this one step further if you keep spreading false derogatory information about ESS. Everything you have stated on this matter has been recorded.

False information? Sir, with all due respect, you are a liar and hypocrite. Every lie you have told about this motor I have collected and will now present in succession. I intend to make it crystal clear that you are willing to lie, cheat, and threaten people to maintain an illusion of tuning superiority while attacking others when you have your own failures you try to sweep under the rug. Well, this won't be swept aside. A further reminder:

Originally Posted by Asbjorn@ESS

And last but not least, Roberts engine was just fine when he removed it. I thought he was crazy pulling the engine as well as the car ran phenomenal IMHO, but he wanted 200MPH in the standing mile and that was more important to him than to have a perfectly balanced daily driver for a reasonable amount of money. I really could care less if a RD 4.6 engine blew, as this is not a production S65 and it does not really impact our S65 sales -but facts are it did not. Robert pulled the best 60-130MPH ever on the way to AutoTalent for engine removal. Speak to Sam and Zolti if you do not believe this.

If possible I would like to keep a professional and honest tone with you in the future, this is even more important for both parties now that you run a good size public forum (quite frankly I am very impressed that you managed to pull the site build/marketing off so well).

More lies. This motor was not fine, as any sane person can see. The owner claims to be "open" and "honest" about everything that takes place. Nope, just when it serves his interest as the owner is a liar, hypocrite, and has done a complete disservice to the BMW community covering this up after saying he would provide pictures:

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

Eventually I'll post photos somewhere.

That quote was made in August of last year after these pictures were taken, how long does it take to post photos you already have of a motor you know failed but lied to everyone about? Some more:

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

I'm in the process of lowing the compression. It seems like there is way too much drama around here and made up stories. That's why I offered to let anybody go take any photos they wanted.

I called this bluff and said I would take photos and was even taunted with a $100 incentive to do so. He never lived up to his own challenge and well you can all see why. How about just more blatant lying?

Originally Posted by PencilGeek

The blown motor and custom billet block story was Sam at Auto Talent's idea -- just to f* with certain people "up the street" and to humiliate anybody who was dumb and/or gullible enough to believe it. And of course, I enjoy doing the same thing, so I went along with it. Sam called me up with the idea and sent me a link to the video and suggested I post it. It obviously worked. But I never expected that it would work so well because I never thought people here were so gullible and devoid of independent thoughts.

AutoTalent was building this car and Sam is the owner. He originally told people the motor blew and told the truth. After he apparently was chewed out by PencilGeek who wants to maintain his illusion of looking like he knows what he is doing and that he knows something about cars, he started this spin about making up a blown motor story. And what did Sam do? Well, the spineless little man decided to lie to everyone as well showing he has no integrity:

=Sam@AutoTalent]- Robert / Pencil Geek / PG's motor was never blown or had any problems. The reason for the re-build is to make more power to achieve the 200 mph goal in the Texas Mile. He drove his car from Northern California to Southern California to take care of the next step. Robert has been very upfront about everything he's done with his car & it's performance.

Another lie from people with no credibility or integrity.

Now, we are sure the owner and ESS are already steaming and wondering what can they do to spin this. Maybe try to claim this is not Robert's motor? Well, good luck with that, as Robert happened to send me in an e-mail hi-resolution photographs of his bored block, take a look here:

That is before the supercharger. See the serial number there to the left? Feel free to match it up to the block of the failed motor:

Same motor. That not good enough for you? You can clearly see it is a bored block and additionally that those are aftermarket pistons in the failed motor. If you look at the top you can see an arrow on the pistons, which the stock BMW pistons do not have:

Stroker/bored piston in failed motor:

And a stock piston:

What led to this entire situation?

1. Envious and arrogant owner who became upset other and much younger owners were supercharging their cars and outperforming him for far less money.

2. No foresight to realize forced induction would be the way to go for big power.

3. Lack of experience and knowledge with BMW tuning as the owner should have built the motor with low compression pistons to begin with but did not know what he was doing and has now paid the price.

4. Using a tuner that has not demonstrated the ability to complete custom projects outside of a narrow framework.

So there you have it. What makes this all worse is that these people have been attacking Active Autowerke as of late just as Gintani used to be attacked. ESS has been using their marketing tools, and I use tools with emphasis, to spread misleading information of Active Autowerke and their supercharged motors to continue to create this illusion of superiority and better reliability. I hate to burst the bubble for you folks, but every tuner has had some issues. We have not played favorites showing you the Active failure (which may be attributed to rod bearings), Gintani rod bearing failure, and now the ESS stroker failure. We would probably list a VF-Engineering failure as well but they have to get on the market first (although they have enough S54 failures that they are set in the engine failure department for some time to come).

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no magic tuner. There is no one super reliable superior setup. These are high compression motors being pushed to HP levels that are almost double what they come with in some cases. There will be bumps in the road. We do not wish to chastise ESS Tuning but considering how they have attacked everyone else and blatantly lied, it's time for this information to come out. We find their tactics and threats absolutely deplorable. Omar at Active Autowerke actually put it best:

Originally Posted by Omar@ActiveAutowerke

Thanks for deliberately misleading the consumer again in this ongoing mission to re-assure yourself you made the right decision. The information posted above is misleading and not a direct reflection of how much power these cars make. A thread will be posted later today to give a better idea of how the Active Autowerke system performs.

We hope you all realize this is all a game being played to control your minds. Why? For money. For the user getting a deal (like the owner in question) and for the company. It's too bad this owner cares more about discounts than coming clean. We would all understand, but instead, we see attacks and instability pointing fingers at everyone else.

There are four vendors all selling competing supercharger kits on BimmerBoost. EAS sells VF-Engineering, Precision Sport sells Active Autowerke, Gintani sells their own, and IND-Distribution sells the ESS Tuning kit. These companies all get along and do not bash one another. IND in particular provides quality builds, support, and we fully recommend the ESS setups they sell as some of the highest quality options one can buy. Notice they don't sit around bashing each other? What is the missing element? Well, that is for you to decide and we believe you are bright enough to figure it out.

All the motor failure pictures are posted below, analyze them yourself if you wish.

The second ring being broke can come from a lot of things and while the pix are hard to read it doesnt look like detonation to me. heavy or light detonation, it would still be easy to read off the spark plugs and likely the piston crown near the exhaust side and heads. And for godsakes, wipe the head/block mating surfaces for such pix. its hard to tell but no evidence of head gasket probs.

The crank bearings look fine too. Clearly a low mileage engine which had a ring failure.

Alum melts before steel and w/ok bearings- it doesnt look like detonation to me. looks more like a poorly designed package with perhaps some issue with the wrong rings for the rpm etc and maybe the 2nd ring ends butted or were oil starved and blamo. Thats also why the cyl walls were scuffed- if it was top ring and piston crown doing the scuffing, the top crown above the top ring would have snapped good sized pieces off.

show me da plugs and they might have some guide problems in the head or oil is coming from somewhere as some of the pistons may have a little more carbon than expected.

The second ring being broke can come from a lot of things and while the pix are hard to read it doesnt look like detonation to me. heavy or light detonation, it would still be easy to read off the spark plugs and likely the piston crown near the exhaust side and heads. And for godsakes, wipe the head/block mating surfaces for such pix. its hard to tell but no evidence of head gasket probs.

It's hard to tell, unfortunately this is the best we have and the best we will get. The headgasket and spark plugs were omitted, obviously not by accident.

Originally Posted by BavarianBullet

The crank bearings look fine too. Clearly a low mileage engine which had a ring failure.

Yep, absolutely. The crank bearings on these motors wear pretty easily from other disassembled motors I have seen and this is a good point.

Originally Posted by BavarianBullet

show me da plugs and they might have some guide problems in the head or oil is coming from somewhere as some of the pistons may have a little more carbon than expected.

Would love to but if they hid the photos of the rings/ringslands we will never get those photos.

Wow. This thread is brutal. I have an ESS VT2-625 kit on my E92, and so far I've been very happy. Not saying ESS is the God of all the kits, but I never knew this happened? Are we sure it was their fault? if it was, I guess they arent good at tuning an S65 that doesn't have factory internals.

on a side note, Im surprised at how much hate there is towards them. Before I got banned on M3post (not for being a fanboy of ESS in case your wondering, it was for something unrelated), everyone loved and still loves ESS. Im shocked. But hey, you cant please everyone and not everyone will like you. It's all good. But Im glad I stumbled onto this thread, I always wondered what happen to PencilGeek's car

Wow. This thread is brutal. I have an ESS VT2-625 kit on my E92, and so far I've been very happy. Not saying ESS is the God of all the kits, but I never knew this happened? Are we sure it was their fault? if it was, I guess they arent good at tuning an S65 that doesn't have factory internals.

on a side note, Im surprised at how much hate there is towards them. Before I got banned on M3post (not for being a fanboy of ESS in case your wondering, it was for something unrelated), everyone loved and still loves ESS. Im shocked. But hey, you cant please everyone and not everyone will like you. It's all good. But Im glad I stumbled onto this thread, I always wondered what happen to PencilGeek's car

I dont think anyone hates the ess customers, well, most of them. its the tactics they use. care to share your location, and maybe some info/pics/data of your car?

Im from Toronto, my forum name on M3post was UNNATRAL. Im using a different computer so all my pics are on my personal laptop. I built my car with IND. My car is the White E92 M3 with Atlantis Blue Brembos, Atlantis Blue Side Markers and Atlantis blue ESS manifold.